Day 8- Craving

Today's topic is something I crave. Well, sugar, definitely, but let's think of something a little less obvious. I crave cleanliness. Like, literally it's as serious a need for me as eating or sleeping. If I go through a whole day without having done a deep cleaning-type chore around the house, something besides just laundry and dishes, I feel irritated and like I'm drowning in filth and it's only going to be that much harder to dig myself out the next day.

I know that lots of people feel this way about tidiness, and can't go to bed, say, until all the toys are put away and the counters are cleared. For me it's slightly different. Today, for example, I got the kitchen mopped and did a thorough scrubbing of the counter tops. This makes me feel contented for the day, and it doesn't really bother me that there are still toys all over the living room. I'll probably leave them lying there and go right to bed, unbothered, but I WOULD have been bothered if I hadn't gotten that floor washed. Logical? Probably not, since the floor wasn't yet outright filthy, and since the toys pose something of a hazard as well as being far more noticeably messy to someone walking in the door than a grimy floor.

But tidiness is not my craving. Knowing something is CLEAN is the feeling I crave. So while you might walk into my house most days and assess it, correctly, as being pretty messy with toys and art project detritus, you can bet that underneath it's actually still fairly clean. It's just not TIDY, and that's a significant difference a lot of people don't recognize. Tidy is not necessarily clean, and cluttered is also not necessarily dirty.